


When Things Fall Apart

by jooliewrites



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: (Like very minor - I honestly probably shouldn't even tag it but just in case), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Break Up, Canon Divergence, Character Study, Character Study - Connor Walsh, Discussions of Suicide, Episode: s01e04 Let's Get to Scooping, M/M, Marking, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of other members of Team Murder, Minor alcohol as a coping mechanism, Minor dirty talk, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-22 08:52:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2501825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jooliewrites/pseuds/jooliewrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'This was it. The illusion that he was in control of his life was over.'</p>
<p>Connor Walsh isn't doing as well as he thinks he in the fall out of his breakup with Oliver.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First, thank you so much to all the lovely people who left comments and kudos on my other fic!! I was really nervous to post it and you were all so nice that it gave me confidence to post again! Love you all! 
> 
> Second, I just wanted to say a quick thing about the canon divergence of this story. The fic is canon (for the most part) through 1x04. The unfortunate breakup happened (still sobbing!) but then the fic diverges from there. The original characters are significant family members and friends (not random, faceless law students, coworkers, etc.) and it includes non-canon backstories for major characters. I'm not trying to warn anyone off (obviously!) but I just want to give a heads up because I know some get frustrated reading a 'canon' fic that suddenly includes lots of things that are not established as canon in the show. I did tag it as best I could but please let me know if you think something else could be added to further clarify this.
> 
> Thanks so much again to all of you and hope you enjoy!  
> -Jules

Who the fuck was pounding on his door this early in the morning? Connor thought with a scowl. On a Sunday too. Sunday was a day of rest. It was God’s day. No one was to bother you on Sunday morning unless it was some sort of emergency. Even then most people had the decency to arrange their Sunday emergencies for after 10:00am. No work and all play was what Sunday mornings were reserved for. Well, for him it wasn’t really a morning of play. He no longer had mornings of play. Not since that night. That stupid, terrible, awful night. But it was a morning for sleeping and someone with a death wish was too busy beating a hole through his door for him to enjoy it.

As he pulled himself off the couch, his bed had been too far away when he stumbled home last night to bother, Connor pulled out his phone. It was Sunday, right? It would be a shame to open the door and work himself up into a good-old-fashioned rant about the sanctity of Sunday mornings and basic human decency if it wasn’t really Sunday. The phone confirmed it really was 6:17am on Sunday morning and he felt a slight sense of relief that he hadn’t lost track of the days again. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. It was unlike him. It was an annoyance.

Reaching the door, Connor peered through the peephole just to verify he knew the monster on the other side before he inadvertently opened his door up to a murderer who liked to announce themselves before getting down to business. Seeing who it was, he let his forehead fall against the door with a resigned groan. The anger faded only to be replaced by guilt and exhaustion.

Of course it was her. Who else could it have been? Elsbeth, his loving sister, well technically stepsister, had come to call. He wondered how rude it would really be, considering their familial bond, if he just went back to sleep and let her wait in the hallway until a more reasonable hour.

“Open the door Connor!” Elsbeth continued to bang against the door as she yelled at him. He was afraid her voice was going to wake the neighbors, if they weren’t already up thanks to her. “I know you’re behind it. Open up.”

That caught his attention. “How did you know I was behind the door?” He questioned and swung the door open. Why did his voice sound so rough and hollow? Like spent all of last night screaming. With that thought, flashes of last night came back to him. He had spent the majority of last night yelling. The club he had chosen for his night of self-destructive behavior and debauchery had been unnecessarily loud.

“Your shadow.” She replied with that clipped tone she only used with their Baknern cousins. Or, of course, when she was attempting to keep her rage in check. He suspected it was a case of the later this morning. “I’m currently unemployed and there are a lot of procedural cop shows on during the day. Your shadow blocked the light coming through the peephole. I knew you were there.”

“Impressive.” He waved her into his apartment and she swiped his phone of his hand as she brushed by. He cleared his throat, as if that could make his voice less horse. “As always, good to see you Elsbeth. And right at the beginning of the day too. It really is the best way to start the day, regardless of what cereal commercials—”

“Shut up,” Elsbeth held a hand up to him and while she tapped on the phone screen with the other. “Don’t be cutesy with me. I’m angry at you.” She glanced up at him. “And shut the door, Connor. You weren’t raised in a barn.”

He shut the door and leaned back against it, barely resisting the urge to slide down, sit on the floor and let his head fall between his knees. Now that the sound of her pounding on the door wasn’t resonating through the apartment, the quiet stillness of Sunday morning was seeping back in. Reminding him how late he had gotten in last night. How he had had too much too drink last night but at the same time not enough. How he had spent the majority of last night with a nameless man’s tongue down his throat but had still come home alone.

The man had been older, reasonably attractive, and had fallen just on the side of hot rather than creepy on the daddy-kink scale but Connor had still turned down his offer to ‘get to know each other better’ as his apartment. And the worst part was, Connor wasn’t even sure why he’d turned the guy down flat and flagged a cab back to his empty, cold apartment. Sure the guy had tasted like the cigarettes he kept excusing himself to light up. And his aftershave had been a little more…floral than Connor usually enjoyed. But those were stupid reasons not to fuck a guy who had clearly been into him. The real reason, he realized in the harsh light of Sunday morning, had been the thing with the glasses.

Connor had been on the man’s lap when the moment happened, making out, grinding on and groping each other like they were teenagers again. In retrospect it had been an embarrassing display. Connor had his hands under the man’s jacket when he felt the glasses in the breast pocket. He broke the kiss and leaned back a little, pulling out the glasses. They were basic, black framed, slightly squared reading glasses.

“What are these?” Connor said in a flirty tone that looking back on now made him want to vomit all over himself.

“What do they look like?” The man replied as he skimmed his hands down Connor’s thighs and back up to grip his hips. “Some of us need them to see. We all aren’t still young, hot things.”

“You’re still hot.” Connor said reflexively. They both knew he didn’t really mean it. Tapping into some hidden, flirty, twink-ish vibe that Connor had been sure he had grown out of, he slipped the frames on his face. He pursed his lips and cocked his head to the side. “How do I look?”

“It doesn’t matter how you look in them. They’re my glasses.” The man rolled his eyes and took the frames off, put the frames on himself and mimicked Connor’s lips-pursed, head-cocked pose. “Isn’t it more important how I look?”

 

Connor’s breath caught in his throat and he had a flash to Oliver sitting in his apartment scrolling through pages of frames on his tablet and occasionally turning the screen to ask Connor how he thought he, Oliver, would look with different style frames.

“Be serious for two minutes. What do you think of these?”

“Ollie. They are fine. Just like the other ones were fine. They are all fine.” Connor had said completely over this obsession with glasses Oliver had all of a sudden and attempting to study. “What’s the big deal? Glasses are glasses.”

“I have to wear them everyday, Connor. I would prefer to not look like an idiot.”

“I had no idea you were so vain.”

“I’m not vain.”

“Yes you are. You are totally being vain about this.”

“Shut up. You’re vain.” With that, Oliver had turned the tablet around and resumed scrolling. His mouth had the beginnings of a pout that Connor was gearing up to tease him about when he opened it again. “We all can’t look like you. With your hair. And you stubble. And your general attractiveness.” He took a deep breath before continuing carefully, in tone that reflected a long buried pain. “Some of us have to work with what we’ve got.”

At that, Connor turned away from his book, got up and walked over to where Oliver was sitting the couch. He sat down next to him and reached over to turn Oliver to meet his gaze. Connor gently traced Oliver’s jaw with his thumb and looked him hard in the eye. “Don’t ever say anything like that ever again.” He kissed him then in a way that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with love. It had been the kind of kiss that Connor never thought himself capable of. Gentle and sweet and soft. He had then curled up next to Oliver and rested his head on his nerd's shoulder. “Not those ones,” he said, referencing the frames Ollie had been looking at on the tablet. “They’re too square.”

 

“Blown away by my beauty,” the man who smelled like cigarettes and dying flowers had loudly joked as he squeezed Connor’s hips. Jolting him back from one of the memories he was trying so hard to forget. “I’ll ask again. How do I look?”

“Hot.” Connor had said suddenly disgusted with himself. “You look hot.” He smirked at the man as he removed the glasses and shoved them back into the man’s pocket; banishing the memory of Oliver and domesticity before they resumed making out. But Connor’s heart hadn’t been in it and more and he had soon after made his excuses and left. Not that his heart, of course, had had anything to do with the stranger below him but it wasn't that how the expression went?

-

“Are you on something?” Elsbeth’s question pulled him out of the thoughts about last night and he shook his head. What was with all the reminiscing this morning? It was making him dizzy. “Hungover? Did you drink too much last night?”

“No,” he responded. Even if he had imbibed too much last night, he certainly wasn’t going to tell Elsbeth of all people about it. “I’m just tired. That’s all.”

She nodded and returned to the phone but he could tell she was far from satisfied even though it was, at least, a partial truth. He was tired. The fact that he had still been asleep when Elsbeth started her campaign to get inside was a miracle. Even with all the late nights and early mornings he was pulling between work and school and his suddenly wide-open social life, his ‘sleeping’ of late had been mostly staring at the ceiling above his bed. Trying in vain not to think about how he had gotten used to sleeping with the weight and breath of another person next to him while he listened to his own shaky breaths in-and-out in the empty bed in the cold apartment.

Realizing where his thoughts were drifting to, again, Connor snapped himself back to the present. There was no good looking down that road. Why was he having such difficulty keeping those treacherous thoughts at bay this morning? Elsbeth was still tapping away on his phone and concentrating so hard she was developing a little wrinkle between her brows. “There’s a passcode on that,” he told her.

“I know there’s a passcode on it.” She rolled her eyes and threw him a glare. “I’m not a total idiot, Con. Also, you really shouldn’t use your mother’s birthday for everything. It leaves you very vulnerable to identity thieves.”

Elsbeth’s concentration returned to the phone and she made one, final triumph tap. She brought the phone to her ear and, moments later, the one in her bag started to ring. Fishing it out, she nodded at the screens and held them out for him to see the displays. “So that works.” His phone read ‘Calling Elsbeth’ and hers had ‘Connor Calling.’ The photo displays they had chosen for the other were cropped versions of the same photo; his featured her and hers him. His father had taken of the two of them with their brother Chase sandwiched between at Fourth of July two years ago on the lake. The three of them had their arms thrown around each other and were laughing, all happy and tan. They looked like something out of a catalog, or at least a really great Instagram account. The perfect picture of an All-American family. He wondered aimlessly if her photo for Chase matched his. He used a cropped version of that photo for his little brother too and would lay money she had done the same. It really was one of the best pictures the three of them had taken recently.

“Let’s see if it sends text messages too,” Elsbeth said sarcastically and turned the phones back to resume tapping away.

“Elsbeth,” Connor said exasperated. He rolled his eyes, gave in, and slid down to the floor. He had a feeling this was going to be a long one and he might as well be comfortable. Seconds later her phone chimed with a new message.

“Look at that. It even sends texts too. The wonders of modern technology,” Elsbeth said with false sincerity as she tossed both devices down on his couch. Turning back to him, she put both hands on her hips and cocked her head.

Dear lord, she was in classic Clarice lecturing stance and Connor was struck by how much she looked like his stepmother. Not necessarily in their coloring. Clarice was a classic, milk-and-honey blonde with clear, blue eyes and delicate features. Her daughter on the other hand took after her father with dark blonde hair, dark brown eyes, and sturdy brow. The resemblance was in the posture. The way Elsbeth carried herself, flicked her wrist slightly brushing back her hair or cocked her head to the left when she was listening intently were all mannerisms adopted after a lifetime of watching her mother. Looking up at her from his place on the floor, Connor was flooded with years of flashbacks of Clarice and his father lecturing at him about whatever wrong he had committed that week. Elsbeth had mastered her mother’s signature opening stance and he would bet she had picked up on a few of Clarice’s other lecturing tricks too. He was so screwed.

“So, let’s do a little review, shall we?” She held up a hand to tick off her points as she slowly walked towards him. “You’re alive. You have a phone that is able to both receive AND send calls. This wonder phone of yours also has full texting capabilities and has access to the Internet. Your Facebook app works. Twitter worked. And, praise be, it even gets email! And yet I haven’t heard anything from you in weeks. Weeks Connor!” She crouched down to meet his eyes. “Your father hasn’t heard from you. My mother hasn’t heard anything in a month, Connor. I even reached out to our dear brother. He was able to pull himself out of the haze of booze and women and lord knows what else he is doing at that place we went to all those years ago that pretends to be a boarding school to tell me that you haven’t responded to his Facebook messages in, and I quote, ‘a long ass time.’ So what’s going on?” Elsbeth waited for him to respond but they just stared at each other.

“Elsbeth,” he started in a resigned tone.

“No. No. No.” As if she sensed he was going to feed her a line of crap, Elsbeth held up a hand. “I sent emails. I texted. I even called you and left voicemails. Voicemails Connor! Do you have any idea the last time I left anyone a voicemail? Do you? Because I don’t. The voicemail is practically an outdated form of communication. Like the telegram or regular mail. But I left you multiple voicemails. And I got nothing in response. Nothing! So now I’m here. I’m here and you are going to talk to me about what is going on. No bullshit. No lies. Just let me in.”

As he stared at her, Connor realized there was both nothing he wanted to say to her and too so much he wanted to get off his chest he wasn’t sure where to start. ‘Law school isn’t what I thought it would be. It’s harder but also easier and I don’t know what I’m doing here. It’s getting more and more difficult to keep my mask of carefree playboy in place. I have no friends here. The only potential friend I had going hates me because I used to fuck her fiancé ten years ago. And then I outed him to her when I was too buzzed to care about the repercussions of my actions. And then I rubbed her face in it in the most vulgar way I could think of. Everyone else I work with is either too naïve, too idealistic, or too much of douchebag to consider friendship and I’m too busy attempting to undercut my classmates to see if any of them want to grab a drink after class. I’m not sleeping. I work with for morally ambiguous women whom I admire and want to emulate but am also growing to despise her. I laid down in a blood-soaked bed next to a murderer as he reenacted a crime that left me feeling scared for my life and unclean and brought up too many daddy issues for me to be entirely comfortable with. I haven’t eaten anything that wasn’t microwavable and full of chemicals in weeks. I fucked a client’s assistant to get information for a case and that one choice played a direct hand in him throwing himself off a building right in front of me so that’s pretty much on me. And, last but certainly not least, exactly seventeen days ago, a nerd who was supposed to mean nothing but somehow means everything kicked me out of his apartment, his life, because I’m a fucking idiot.’ Afraid if he opened his mouth the resulted tirade would sound something like that, he just kept his mouth shut and waited for Elsbeth to continue.

“We talk to each other, Con.” Elsbeth tried a gentler tone and put a hand on his knee as she sat down next to him on the floor. “Learned that lesson the hard way but we’re better now. We talk. We communicate. We let each other know what is going on. We do not drop off the face of the earth for weeks. So, spill. What’s happening?”

“Nothing’s happening. I just…” Connor trailed of as he rubbed a hand over his face. He hoped his words sounded more upbeat than he felt at the moment. He needed to strike the right tone with her if he had any hope of getting her to leave so he could spend the rest of the day sleeping his life away in peace. “I just got really behind in getting back to you guys. Nothing to worry about. Just me getting lazy with texting again.” He gave her a small smile as he tried to really sell the last line. He did have a reputation in the family for being terrible at texting people back. If he were lucky, he’d be able to convince her it was something like that.

“Connor,” she said, her disbelief evident in everything from her tone to her raised brows. “Really?”

“What?” he demanded suddenly pissed off. What did she want? She was the one who barged in, uninvited and started grilling him. She was lucky he wasn’t throwing her out. “I've been busy. Did you never think that I might just be busy? I don’t know, Elsbeth. I'm busy trying to keep my head above water in law school and have a life and do my job. So, I got a little behind in texting you guys back. So what? You really thought the best course of action was to come badger me about at 6:30 on a Sunday morning?”

“Desperate times Connor. Desperate times,” Elsbeth shot back. She opened her mouth to say something but closed it again and sighed as she took in his wreck of an apartment. Books and paperwork were piled on his kitchen table and his laptop was buried under another collection of books and papers on the coffee table. A pile of clothes he meant to take to the dry cleaners was near the bedroom door and a matching pile of dirty clothes he needed to wash was in front of the washing machine. The portion of the bathroom that could be seen through the door looked like a tornado had gone through it. Products and towels and God knew what else scattered over every available surface. She sat up a little to get a better look into the kitchen over the breakfast bar and saw the counter covered in empty takeout containers that wouldn’t fit in the overflowing garbage and dishes stacked precariously in the sink. The entire apartment was covered in a layer of dusk and grime and had a slight odor to it that he hadn’t noticed before that very moment. His apartment was a perfect reflection of the mess his life was. “Connor,” she began.

“I gave my cleaning lady some time off,” he cut her off with a smirk.

“Connor,” she tried again, even softer this time with a hint of what he thought might be pity.

“Do you want any coffee? I need coffee.” Connor cut her off again, desperate to avoid the conversation he knew was coming. He pulled himself up and reached a hand down to help pull her up too. Elsbeth opened her mouth to speak but then thought better of it and simply nodded. “Good,” he said and headed into the kitchen. He pulled out his coffee pot and started filling the carafe with water. “So, how is everyone?”

“Oh, you know,” she shrugged, deciding to play along with his attempt at pleasantries rather that continuing to badger him and followed him to the kitchen. “Same old, same old. Mother is fighting with the ladies from the church Women’s League again. This time it’s about the designers they are selecting as part of the fashion show.” She moved some papers off one of the stools and sat at the breakfast bar that opened up his kitchen to the rest of the apartment. “Apparently, Angela Babish wants her granddaughter to be the headlining designer because Neiman’s is carrying one of her lines in their East Coast stores. But then Mother found out that the line they’re carrying is lingerie, not ‘active wear’ like Angela told them, and doesn’t think it is strictly appropriate for a lingerie designer to be the headlining designer a charity show.”

“I can imagine Clarice has a number of issues with that,” Connor replied with a grin and obvious affection. He loved his stepmother but she was nothing if not painstakingly proper. “She must be beside herself.”

“She is, she really is.” Elsbeth joked. “When she found out, she made me look up the designs online. Then, once she saw them, I thought she was going to faint. She had to call the reverend to get his input.”

“Wait! Clarice called Reverend Chambers to get his opinion on lingerie?” Connor flipped off the water, the carafe was full, and stared at his sister in disbelief. “Kinky. Go Clarice.”

“No you perv,” Elsbeth reached out to swat him on the arm. “She called to get his advice on how to put Angela Babish in her place. But listening in on her attempting to explain to the good reverend what type of clothing the granddaughter designed without saying ‘lingerie’ was amazingly priceless.” She sighed and brought her hands to her heart in a gesture of mock sincerity. “I wish I had a recording of it for rainy days and to listen to when she rants at me about my life choices.”

Her offhanded comment made him think of a recording that he wished he had deleted and quickly turned away to fill the coffee machine. He wasn't thinking about that anymore this morning. “How’s Dad?”

“He’s doing well,” she said as Connor began hunting around for a coffee filter. “Business is doing well. Although if it was doing poorly, he wouldn’t think to mention it to us anyways.” Connor nodded and opened another cabinet looking for filters. He knew he had some somewhere. Elsbeth continued, “Chase was home last weekend and they played tennis. And Chase beat Bruce in straight sets. I thought he was going to cry.”

“Chase or Dad?” he questioned as he held up the package of coffee filters in triumph. Now he just needed to find coffee. When had he let his kitchen get this bad? This was disgusting. There was garbage everywhere. All his dishes looked dirty, even the ones sitting in the cabinets. And he was pretty sure that bread was molding. He tried to move the empty fruit bowl in front of it lest Elsbeth see. After he gave her a cup of coffee and kicked her out, he was cleaning.

“Both,” she replied. “You remember what it’s like the first time you beat Bruce at tennis. You’re happy you won but also shocked and a little terrified that you beat the old man. Chase was grinning from ear to ear throughout dinner. It was so cute.” Elsbeth smiled with the memory but then turned somber. “Bruce spent the rest of the night in his study. I think he’s having trouble realizing that we are all grown up.”

“Yeah,” Connor said offhandedly, still looking for coffee. “When did our little brother get so old?”

“I don’t know,” she commiserated. “He’s just starting to look at colleges. It’s depressing.”

It really was, Connor thought. He remembered when Dad and Clarice brought Chase home from the hospital. He had been just ten and Chase had been so tiny and so pink. Connor had been so excited that he finally had a sibling of his own. His dad and Clarice were quick to point out that Elsbeth was his sibling but she was a stepsister not a real sister. Plus she was a girl and knew nothing about Pokémon. Both of which were huge marks against her in ten-year-old Connor’s book. At that point in their relationship, he and Elsbeth were barely tolerating each other but Chase would be different. He would be his real sibling because they shared a dad and he was a boy. It was going to be amazing.

Little did Connor know how much adding a baby to the household would change the dynamic in their new, hybrid family, and how Chase would inadvertently been the glue that brought he and Elsbeth together. The stepsiblings’ mutual hatred of their new baby brother would bind them together better than any family vacation or puppy or toy ever could. The two had been inseparable ever since they started plotting together to get Chase sent back to where ever it was babies came from.

How was that already sixteen years ago now? When had he gotten so old? Connor had a flash of being in Oliver’s bed. They were both breathless as they came down from truly amazing sex. Who knew that sex-monster had been hiding Oliver’s calm, almost meek exterior? Oliver was running a hand down Connor’s side absentmindedly as he shifted gears from fucking Connor’s brains out into the post-sex cuddling that Oliver was so fond of. Connor told himself he didn’t care either way about the cuddle sessions that had become a routine but did burrow his way a little deeper into Oliver’s side when Oliver opened his mouth to speak.

“Just so you know,” Oliver paused and waited for Connor to glace up at him. “You’re too old to be a twink too.” Connor had laughed and that had begun a ridiculous round of playfully teasing each other that ended with them both acknowledging that neither of them was as young as they used to be.

 

Anyways, that didn’t matter now, Connor thought as he brushed yet another the memory aside and resumed his search for coffee. He wasn’t thinking about that now. He was never thinking about that again. Why was that such an issue today?

“So,” Elsbeth said after the very pregnant pause in the flow of conversation. “How are you?”

“Good. I’m good,” Connor said a little too quickly. He could practically feel the hesitancy when she had voiced her question and really wanted to reassure her that he was fine. They would chat over coffee, he would promise to get better at talking with his family, and she would leave. “School is just getting really crazy right now. Midterms. Papers. You know the drill. Plus work is going really well but it’s taking up much more time than I thought it would.” As he continued to ramble on about work and school, he stepped out of the kitchen to check the pantry for his missing coffee. “We got these two new clients this week and both cases are going to be epic. I can’t really tell you much but this one lady…” he trailed off as he found the canister in his pantry. He carried it into the kitchen and popped off the lid. It was empty. He was out of coffee. When did he run out of coffee? More importantly, how did he run out of coffee?

“Connor?” Elsbeth questioned when he didn't resume his train of thought. She slipped off her stool and walked into the kitchen. He was standing in the middle of his filthy kitchen, in his disgusting apartment, holding an empty coffee can. Not moving an inch or saying a word. “Connor? You okay?”

Connor slowly shook his head. He wanted to answer her but felt like his throat was closing. What was wrong with him? He was just out of coffee. It wasn’t the end of the world. So why did it suddenly feel like it? It was getting hard to breathe, hard to swallow. There was a pressure behind his eyes and he could feel them beginning to fill. The room felt like it was spinning and closing in on him. He had never had a panic attack in is life but he imagined this sense of hopelessness and fear and falling while also drowning was somewhat similar.

He opened his mouth to speak and let out a half sob. He quickly closed it, shook his head again and closed his eyes. He focused on taking a few deep breaths and swallowed, trying to push down whatever was blocking his throat. There wasn’t anything Connor could do about the tears filling his eyes but Elsbeth was at his back so he hoped she couldn’t see. He tried to speak again. “I’m out of coffee.” There was a hitch to his voice but he got it out. Thank God. “I can’t make coffee.”

“It’s okay,” Elsbeth reached around to grab the empty can from his hand and set it on one of the few clear spots on the counter. “I don’t need coffee.”

Connor nodded but kept his mouth shut. He could feel another sob threatening to break if he opened his mouth. What was the matter with him? This was a ridiculous reaction to being out of coffee. But he knew that it wasn’t just that. It’s everything. All of it. He was suddenly flooded with every memory he had been burying down deep under school and work and drinking and strangers. Oliver laughing so hard Connor couldn’t help but join in. Aiden and Michaela kissing on a porch. Michaela wearing that fucking ring everyday because Aiden had asked her to. Oliver attempting to explain what he did for a living for the thousandth time while Connor tried to not fall asleep with his eyes open. The pity he’s seen in Wes and Laurel’s eyes the last week. Oliver hovering over his shoulder as Connor cooked them dinner and then eating two helpings and proclaiming it the best spaghetti he had ever had. Paxton groaning against Connor's neck as he came and then Paxton pushing himself out that window. Asher simply being Asher. Oliver wrapping himself around Connor in the night so Connor always woke feeling safe and wanted and loved. Oliver fighting with him over meeting each other’s friends and putting feelers out about if they would do Thanksgiving together. Oliver’s calming presence working on his laptop across from Connor studying and Connor being so happy he didn't think to question what he had done to deserve this. Oliver with tears in his eyes as he listened to that damn recording. Oliver kicking him out. Connor standing outside his door, clutching his clothes to his chest, feeling adrift and not knowing what he needed to do next. Forcing himself to delete Oliver’s number from his phone after a very close call with drunk texting and being left with nothing. Running past Oliver’s apartment building on his daily runs because he was pathetic and apparently a stalker. Seeing the light on in Oliver’s room when he ran at night and torturing himself with visions of Oliver wrapped up in someone else. Kissing, teasing, loving some other faceless asshole who was probably actually worthy of Oliver’s affection. Oliver. Oliver. Oliver.

“Connor?” Elsbeth questioned again as she gently turned him around. “How are you?”

Connor looked up to meet her eyes, no longer caring if he saw tears in them. He was still stubbornly holding back sobs and had started to shake slightly under the pressure of it. She reached up to brush his hair back and put a hand on his cheek. “It’s okay, Connor. It’s just me. You’re okay.”

He opened his mouth to tell her he knew he wasn’t okay but nothing comes out. He tried again and choked on air. Then the dam broke and he was sobbing. Tears ran down his face and he was dry heaving attempting to breathe. Connor clung to Elsbeth and she staggered under both of their weight. Dragging them down to the floor of the kitchen, she awkwardly sat in his lap and wrapped her arms around him. She pulled him in and rocked him loosely as weeks of pent up emotion came pouring out. This was it. The illusion that he was in control of his life was over he realized as he clung to his sister like the lifeline she was.

Later, when he had stopped sobbing but she was still holding him close, he let out a shaky breath. “I’m not okay, little sister.”

“I know, big brother, I know.” Elsbeth wiped the tears off his cheeks and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “Come on. Get dressed. We’re going to breakfast.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, 
> 
> First of all, thank you so much to all of you who left comments and kudos. I love you all. You're wonderful! xoxo
> 
> Second, so sorry this is so so late. I really did mean to post it much earlier but then this chapter kind of exploded into a much longer chapter than I originally intended. My apologies. 
> 
> I have added some tags for chapter 2. Please check them out. 
> 
> Last, I am posting this really late at night (mostly because I swore to myself I would post today), so please please please let me know if something doesn't make sense. I think I've caught all the grammar/plot mistakes but I'm afraid I missed something after looking at it way too long. 
> 
> Okay, that's it. Hope you enjoy. I am off to sleep and then watch 1.07 (didn't watch because of editing),  
> -Jules xoxo

“Come on, Con,” Elsbeth said as she pulled him up off the floor. “Go shower. Get ready.”

Connor nodded and let her drag him into a standing position. He made a vague gesture toward the TV with an offhand comment to “Make yourself at home” as made his way to the bathroom. He made a small detour to his bedroom first to grab a change of clothes that at least smelled clean if they weren’t strictly clean clean.

In the bathroom, he flipped on the faucet of the combination tub/shower to let the water heat up for a moment. The building was a fifth-floor walkup that realtors loved to describe as “charming” and “quaint” in a recently gentrified section of Philadelphia a few blocks from the Middleton campus. One of the few benefits of his “old-fashioned” building was that the rent was decently reasonable for the neighborhood while the list of drawbacks was seemingly endless and included a hot water heater that would be more appropriate for a doll house and took forever to pump water up to his fourth floor apartment. He doubted his upstairs neighbors ever got hot water. 

He adjusted the tap in a practiced way that seemed to be a trick to getting the water to run from cold to warm in a timely fashion and wondered if he could somehow convince Elsbeth not to tell his father about the apartment. It was an okay place to live but nothing really special; certainly not up to his father’s Walsh Standard. His father was nothing if not a snob and would consider the apartment beneath his son but Connor liked it well enough. If nothing else he liked that the rent was well below what he had told his father his rent was, which gave him some more money to play with from the monthly allowances deposited in his account.

While he waited for the water to run warm, he surveyed the damage of his crying fit in the mirror. Tear tracks still lined his cheeks despite Elsbeth’s attempts to wipe them off and his eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. Connor pulled a washcloth out of the small linen closet and ran it under the cold water coming out of the tub. He wiped the cloth over this face to remove the evidence of tears and used the heel of each hand to press the cool cloth into his eyes in an attempt to reduce the puffiness. 

After a moment, Connor pulled it off and tossed it into the pile of dirty towels in the corner of his bathroom. Glancing at the pile, he moved laundry up above cleaning the kitchen in is mental list of chores and surveyed his face again in the mirror. He looked a little better; his eyes were still swollen but they weren’t as red anymore. Connor gave himself a hard look in the mirror and swore he wasn’t going to do that ever again. He didn’t cry over guys or relationships or feelings. 

The sound of Elsbeth turning on music in the living room startled him out of the odd staring contest he was having with himself in the mirror and he turned to check the water temperature. Shaking his head he wondered for the hundredth time what was the matter with him this morning. Having a moment of clarity and self-reflection while staring at himself in a mirror? People only did that shit in sappy movies and poorly written novels. 

The water wasn’t quite hot yet but was lukewarm at least so Connor stripped down and stepped under the spray. He did the perfunctory tasks of washing himself and shampooing his hair as quickly as he could. It was amazing how fast one could shower with tepid water. With that done, he made to get out when, like someone had flipped a switch in the basement, the water turned pleasantly hot and he let the curtain fall back. 

Brushing his hair back, Connor turned his face into the spray and let it wash away the last evidence of his mini-break. He wasn't sure what had happened this morning but clearly he wasn't in control of his emotions anymore. If he was being completely honest with himself, which Connor usually avoided doing, he could admit that holding that empty coffee can had been the last straw but the breakdown in his kitchen had been a few days coming.

His mental state had been in flux since that night he found himself standing outside Oliver's apartment, clutching his clothes to his chest and unsure what his next move should be. Connor had debated knocking on the door then and there and demanding to be let in or just walking away as he pulled on his pants. He’d managed to convince himself that knocking and pleading his case was the right course of action as he tugged the shirt over his head. But, leaning against the wall as he reached down to lace up his shoes, he replayed the argument in his head yet again and thought better of it. 

Oliver was too pissed in that moment. Too hurt. Not thinking clearly. Connor knew instinctively that his arguments would fall on deaf ears and he figured that pressing his case at that moment wouldn’t do him any good. Digging in tonight would just drive Oliver further away and he’d been surprised at the fear that clutched his gut at thought of Oliver not forgiving him. He’d give the nerd a day or two to think about it, Connor decided and went home. 

That night had been a restless one, with the argument between the two of them on repeat in his head and none of his usual tricks for turning off his brain had worked. When he had finally managed to fall asleep it had been restless and uneasy. 

Connor dreamt of the moment he met Oliver. The easy mark fidgeting with his glass while trying to avoid starting at every hot guy who walked by. Connor had been intrigued by the way the man’s eyes kept meeting his as they both scanned the room. Glasses, as Connor had dubbed him at first, would look away so nervously whenever their eyes met. The first few glances had been fleeting and shy but then they had become bolder and lingered longer. Connor could practically hear the man’s inner monologue as they watched each other, the other man silently working up the nerve to make a move, and Connor thought it was the most adorable thing. At the time, Connor hadn’t even wondered why his gaze kept coming back to Oliver’s too. 

Connor dreamt of Paxton, with his flirtatious grin and carefree manner that had been so fucking hot. No discussion of breakfast or crossword puzzles necessary. In the dream, Connor relived the moment Paxton’s eyes filled with tears as Marren painted a picture of what the rest of his life was going to look like. But, suddenly it wasn’t Paxton’s eyes that were filled with tears. They were Oliver’s. And it wasn’t Marren speaking anymore but himself.

“I like you, actually.”

“That guy was just sex. You’re more than sex.”

“Don’t make this a bigger deal than it actually is.”

The pair of them was in the firm’s empty office. Oliver standing with his hands in his pockets in front of a large, open window, casually surveying Connor as wind coming through the window fluttered his tie. Connor was across the room screaming at Oliver. He kept trying to walk towards the man but his legs wouldn’t move. Nothing would move. He was yelling those three sentences and more over and over again. Screaming excuses and justifications and even some blame at the man stoically staring him down in front of that open window. Screaming to be heard over the sound of that damn recording playing on a loop so loud it was drowning out all other noise. 

Oliver couldn’t hear him. Connor couldn’t get through to him. He just needed to get through to him. He needed Oliver to know that Paxton didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Connor understood that now. Nothing mattered except the two of them and the relationship that Connor hadn’t realized they were in. Hadn’t thought he wanted. Hadn’t known he needed. 

Then the recording had stopped. His screaming at stopped. The air between the two of them had become eerily quiet and the breeze through the window grew stronger as they stared at each other. 

“Get out,” Oliver said, the tears gone and his resolve steady, and Connor realized that Oliver had heard him. He had heard the pleas and begging. The rationalizations and excuses. Oliver had heard it all but it hadn’t mattered. 

Then Oliver turned away to the window and Connor panicked, rushing toward him with his heart in his throat. It wasn’t going to be like Paxton all over again, watching Frank rush forward and miss. He wasn’t going to stand by and watch Oliver fall. He wasn’t going to wait calmly on the curb and watch paramedics scrape Oliver off the sidewalk. Connor was going to stop him. It wasn’t until he was rushing by that Connor realized Oliver wasn’t falling. He was still standing tall in front of the window, looking casually down, watching as Connor fell hard and fast. Their eyes met as Connor sensed the sidewalk rushing towards him and he opened his mouth to scream when suddenly he woke in his bed with a jolt; the scream lodged in his throat. 

Shaking and covered in cold sweat, Connor had reached across the bed, panicking all over again when he hadn’t found Oliver there. He almost called out for the man before he remembered that it was just a dream. Oliver was safe. Oliver was safe in his own apartment across town and Connor was alone in his. He brushed his sweaty hair out of his face and forced himself to take a few deep breaths until his heartbeat slowed back to normal. As he lay back down, he pulled a pillow to his chest, buried his face in it and convinced himself that is smelled like Oliver. Even though he knew it was a pathetic lie, he let himself be lulled into a dreamless sleep to the phantom scents of sandalwood and eucalyptus and something else that was purely Oliver. 

That night he decided that sleep was overrated and he was probably getting too much of it as it was. 

The next crack in the façade had come days later. He and Wes had been standing off to the side of Professor Keating’s living room/intern holding area listening intently as Bonnie explained the eccentricities of the latest case. Well, Wes was politely standing to the side and listening intently. Connor was hiding behind him checking his phone. Having this tall, gangly, want-to-be giant around was coming in handy. And he wasn’t checking, again, if Oliver had contacted. It had been two days with nothing. Oliver hadn’t responded to any of his texts or even the two carefully worded emails he sent since the one he’d sent early in the breakup asking Connor very politely, too politely in Connor’s opinion, to stop contacting him. Oliver asked for time and space and Connor deleted that email almost instantly, pretending he hadn’t gotten it. He hadn’t even bothered to read the whole thing before sending it to trash. He imagined Oliver had gone on poetic about the nature of their non-relationship but Connor wasn’t up to reading it. Oliver just needed to realize that the whole Paxton thing hadn’t meant anything. That was that. They were going to be fine. It was all going to be fine and he and Oliver were going to go back to their non-relationship, fuck-buddy adjacent thing, eventually.

So that morning, he wasn’t messing with his phone to check if Oliver had reached out, at least that was what he told himself as he closed his email app and opened up messages to make sure nothing came through that he missed. He was playing with his phone because Bonnie was droning on and on about what had to be the most boring case ever and it was either this or fall asleep while standing. A husband had found his wife was cheating and killed her in a jealous rage. Professor Keating was quizzing them all on different defense strategies they could use and Connor couldn’t work up an interest in debating defense for what had to be the dullest case in Annalise Keating’s caseload.

Wife cheats on husband. Husband finds out. Husband kills wife. Husband calls the police and then sits in his kitchen and waits to be arrested, holding the gun he used while his wife’s blood runs out and ruins the hardwood floors they had put in three Christmases ago. What was there to debate or defend? It was so banal it would be beneath an episode of Law & Order. Open and shut. Quick trial, minimal jury deliberation and a one-way ticket to jail. Case closed. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 dollars. Laurel was currently arguing for a diminished capacity defense because of “heartbreak” when Connor had finally lost it.

“Heartbreak? Really?” Connor had scoffed to Wes in an aside. “Are we really going to debate this one? Heartbreak doesn’t cause diminished capacity. This is bullshit.”

“I don’t know,” Wes whispered back, clearly still attempting to follow the back and forth between Laurel and Prof. Keating about what really constituted diminished capacity. Michaela had somehow gotten roped into the conversation as well and, as if on cue, Asher popped in to say something insipid. “My last breakup was pretty rough. I mean I didn't have any desire to shoot her or anything and she didn’t cheat on me. But still. Rough. You know?”  

“No,” Connor said, perhaps a bit too quickly. He locked and pocketed his phone. Nothing had come in from anyone. “Never been in a relationship. Never broken up with someone.”  

“Really?” Wes turned at that, the disbelief apparent in his expression. “You haven't broken up with someone….” 'Recently' went unsaid off the end of the sentence as Wes trailed off. 

“No,” Connor said with finality. He brought his attention back to the conversation at hand and ignored the pitying look Wes shot him. The puppy dog eyes were annoying. If the man had any hope of becoming a decent attorney he needed to work on his poker face.

Also, Wes had no idea what he was talking about. He and Oliver hadn’t broken up. You had to be in a relationship to breakup with someone. Everyone knew that. And he and Oliver hadn’t been in a relationship. They had had sex, really fucking great sex but that was it. Yeah, they shared meals more often than not. And maybe Connor had spent more nights studying and hanging out or whatever at Oliver’s place than he did at his own in a given week but that was just because Oliver had much better food and a better cable package. Plus, it was easier to just walk over and bug Oliver when he was done studying for the night and horny rather than go out and find someone. It had nothing to do with feelings or love or the fact that apartment 303 felt more like home to him than any other place in Philadelphia.

“Okay,” Wes said as they both tuned in just in time for Prof. Keating to ask them a question and draw attention to the fact that neither of them had been listening to the ongoing exchange.

Connor responded to Prof. Keating’s question with a smart-ass comment that he knew wasn’t one of his best comebacks before Wes could stammer out an apology for the fact that they weren’t listening. He smirked to himself as she rolled her eyes and turned away. Clearly dismissing the two of them as idiots wasting her time. 

Wes shot him a look and went to sit on the couch next to Laurel and Connor smirked again to cover the pang of disappointment he felt as Wes left him standing alone. He and Wes had just had something that could almost have been considered a friendly exchange. Something that could have potentially led to he and Wes being at least more friendly towards each other in in the future, even if they were not strictly friends. It would have been nice to have at least one semi-friendly face in the office considering how royally he had fucked up his budding friendship with Michaela. 

Connor quickly ended that train of thought and forced himself to focus on the case they were discussing, regardless of how boring it was. He wasn't opening up to Wes. They weren't going to bond over exes and become friendly. Wes was competition. They were all competition. He needed to remember that.  What was the matter with him? One fuck buddy kicks him out and he's an emotional wreck.

The final break in his resolve hadn’t been one specific moment but rather a string of non-moments. Oliver not responding to any of his attempts to reach him until Connor had realized how pathetic and borderline stalker-like his behavior was becoming and stopped trying. Going out to drink and fuck strangers more often than he had in his undergrad heydays. Forcing himself to delete Oliver’s number after the second time he caught himself almost texting the nerd while he was drunk with someone else. 

The worst had been last Friday. He was at a club, attempting to work up some interest in whatever it was his partner was saying when he saw him. There was Oliver, standing there with a drink in his hand, flirting with some asshole that looked like he sold insurance in a depressing cubicle under florescent lighting all day. Connor had stood there watching, transfixed, as Oliver and Insurance Douche exchanged smiles and laughs. Connor watched as Oliver pulled the man in by a belt loop and kissed him. He watched as the asshat put down his drink to run his hands up Oliver’s chest and cradle his face. He watched as they changed the angle of the kiss so it was dirtier and sloppy and wet. Oliver slipped a hand under the guy who wasn’t Connor’s shirt to press a hand on the small of his back and pull them even closer together. The jerk knuckled Oliver’s hair and tilted his head back to kiss down his neck before sucking a mark into his collarbone, staking a claim on Friday that could easily be covered for work on Monday morning. 

They broke apart and the man bent close to say something in Oliver’s ear and Oliver’s face broke out in that fucking adorable, shy smile and Connor felt something inside him break. The kissing had been one thing. Considering the nature of their breakup and all of his own questionable actions since that night it would be ridiculous for Connor to be upset over Oliver making out with someone but that son-of-a-bitch made Oliver smile. That was unacceptable.

Connor hadn’t realized he had moved to walk towards the couple with some unformed idea of beating the asshole with his hand on Oliver’s ass bloody until his own partner wrapped an arm around his waist. Pulling Connor’s back flush with the man’s front, the man rested his chin on Connor’s shoulder and they both watched in silence as Oliver resumed making out with some stranger.

“See something interesting, pretty?” The man had turned to whisper low and dirty in Connor’s ear and Connor could feel the man’s hardening cock pressing into his hip.

“No.” Connor swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat at this stranger getting it up watching Oliver and some nameless guy grin on each other. No one should see Oliver like that, certainly not this guy, and Connor was disgusted with himself for drawing the man’s attention to the display. He turned so they were face-to-face and pulled the man’s gaze to meet his, spinning their bodies slightly so the man couldn’t see Oliver anymore. He couldn’t even remember what the guy’s name might have been and for the first time all night was so fucking happy about it. “Little boring actually. Wanna show ‘em how it’s done?”

Connor pulled the guy’s mouth to his. He let the man he knew he would never see again kiss him and grope him and just hoped Oliver saw while praying that he didn’t. Eventually, he pulled the man into the bathroom and fucked him against the stall. Cleaning up in the sink afterword, Connor couldn’t look at his own reflection in the mirror and threw up in the alley next to the club before catching a cab back to his apartment. 

Making his way home, he wondered if Oliver saw them. He wondered if Oliver went home with that guy. He wondered what they were up to right now. He wondered if at that moment Oliver was fucking that guy. He tortured himself with visions of the pair of them together. Oliver mouthing open kisses down the man’s chest before sucking him down deep. The man draping himself over Oliver’s back so every part of them was touching as he fucked into him. Connor told himself that punishing himself like that was stupid. What Oliver did with his time now was Oliver’s business. Just like what Connor did with his own had always been his business. They didn’t owe each other anything. 

As the cab finally made it to his building, Connor got out and trudged up the four flights, telling himself all the way up that he didn’t feel anything at all. 

And he hadn’t felt anything since that fateful Friday night. It had all been going so well. He had managed to bury all his feelings down to the point that he genuinely didn’t think he felt them anymore. Until his sister had showed up with her demands for answers. Holding up a mirror for him to see the mess his life was in. 

As the water in the shower started to run cold again, Connor flipped it off and stepped out with a silent, if not wholly insincere, apology to his neighbors for using all the hot water up before 7am. He hoped all of them were getting chance to actually sleep in this Sunday morning. He threw on his clothes and toweled off his hair before running a comb through it and calling it a day. He didn’t have the energy this morning to go through the normal routine of styling his hair. It just didn’t seem worth it anymore. Nothing seemed worth it anymore. He brushed his teeth and, looking at the toothpaste gunk in the sink and product spilled on the counter, added cleaning the bathroom to his list of chores. Reviewing the list in is head he wondered if it would be easier to just burn his apartment down once Elsbeth was gone and start over somewhere else.   

Ready if not raring to go, Connor left the bathroom to hunt down Elsbeth and get this breakfast over with. Walking into the living room, he was shocked by what he found. His little stepsister was cleaning his apartment. A pile of garbage bags was stacked in front of his door. The living room that had been a mess of papers and books and dishes he hadn't bothered to clear away was looking halfway presentable. The books and papers were stacked neatly on the coffee table with his laptop plugged in to charge and the dishes were gone. The end tables looked like they had been recently wiped down with a wet rag and the blanket that he had thrown on the floor after sleeping on the couch was nearly folded over the back of one of the occasional chairs. The cushions and throw pillows all looked freshly fluffed and, despite the chill in the late fall air, on of his windows was cracked to bring fresh air into the room and blow out the stale scent of old takeout and filth that had lingered.

Through the breakfast bar he could see Elsbeth. Rubber gloves he didn't remember owning protecting her hands and she shoved takeout containers and junk mail into yet another garbage bag. She glanced up. “Oh good. You're done.” Elsbeth shoved one last handful of trash in and tied off the bag. “You ready?”  

“Is this…?” Connor trailed off and made a wide gesture. “Are you cleaning my apartment?”  

“Well, I wouldn't call this cleaning,” she said as she dropped the bag into the pile by the door and walked back to the kitchen to take off the gloves and wash her hands. “This is more just straightening up. Just looks a little cleaner but the dirt is all still there.'”

“I didn't know you knew how to clean.” They had both grown up in a house with maids to pick up after them. 

“I could say the same for you. Oh wait,” Elsbeth gestured to the mess that was still his bathroom. “You don’t.”

“Hey, whose gloves are those?” 

“Whatever, Con.” They shared an easy smile. Elsbeth pulled back on the coat she had tossed over one of his kitchen chairs and pulled her long hair out of the back to hang loose over her shoulders. She blew the bangs out of her face and grabbed a lib gloss out of her purse to touch up her makeup in his mirror by the door while continuing. 

“So where do you want to go to breakfast?” he asked, pulling on his own coat and slipping his wallet and phone into his pocket.

“I thought I saw a brunch-y place while I was driving in. I think it was a few blocks…” She turned herself around a few times in the middle of his hallway, attempting to figure out where his apartment was in relation to how she had driven up. Connor thought he deserved some sort of prize for not laughing at her right then and there. Elsbeth threw an arm out to the left once she seemed to get her bearings. “That way. I think. You know the one I'm talking about? The sign was red or purple or something? Ever been?”

“Yeah. Well no. Never been but I think I've driven past a few times.” Of course he had never been. Brunch was a couple’s thing. Brunch and crossword puzzles and meeting each other’s friends and not fucking strangers were all couple-y things. 

“Well, it had a pancake or scone or something breakfasty on the awning. How bad could it be?” Elsbeth said as they entered the elevator. 

“Works for me.” Connor pushed the button for the garage level of his building and turned to her. “Do you have a meter running or something? I’ve got a guest space.”

“No. Thanks. Took a train.”

“Must have been an early train,” he commented as they walked to his car.

“It was a late train, big brother. Late last night train.” They hopped in the car and Connor began heading to the restaurant. “And I lied before. I really do need coffee.” 

Connor let out a genuine laugh at that and the drive to the restaurant called The Breakfast Club (Elsbeth’s cry of “How cute!” was met with an eye-roll of epic proportions from Connor) was blissfully uneventful. Elsbeth said nothing when Connor walked right up to the hostess, past the small crowd of couples and families waiting for tables, and slipped her a hefty tip to seat them right away. But did give him the side-eye as the hostess led them into a table in the back of a room that had been roped off with a “Section Closed” sign.

“I don't think this is the kind of place where you normally have to tip the maître d'.” Elsbeth whispered over her menu after the hostess seated them and told them that their waitress, Maggie, would be with them in a few moments to take their orders.

“I don’t think this is the kind of place that calls them maître d's,” Connor returned as he opened his menu. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he had smelled the pancakes and eggs wafting in through from the kitchen. From the way his stomach was grumbling you would think he hadn’t eaten in days. Which, now that he was thinking about it, he really hadn’t had a full meal in a while. “And I'm not standing around with a pager waiting for a table as some asshole couple to take half a morning to eat eggs and read the paper to each other.”   

“Okay Connor,” Elsbeth said in that understanding tone he was growing to hate. They both reviewed their menus and placed their orders with Maggie, who wisely didn’t attempt to make Sunday morning small talk. Thankfully, she did leave a carafe filled with hot coffee on the table for them to refill on their own as she made her way out. 

Alone again, the two siblings sat in silence, each waiting for the other to broach the elephant in the room, until Connor finally broke first. “Sorry for being an asshole.”

“Which time?” she shot back and Connor smiled at that. How is it Elsie always knew what to say?

“For you know? Before.” At her blank stare, he continued. “That thing earlier.” Did he really want to say ‘crying fit’ out loud in public? “In my kitchen. I don’t…. I don’t know what that was.”

“We’ve done worse to each other.” Elsbeth shrugged of his apology. “Do you…do you want to talk about it?” She asked carefully and Connor understood that, in that moment, if he said no she would let the matter drop. For all her blunder and rage earlier, Elsbeth knew him better than almost anyone. She knew that if she pushed, Connor would dig his heels in deeper and shove whatever it was he was feeling down deep, even deeper than it already was, where it would never ever again see the light of day. 

Connor wanted to say no. He desperately wanted to say no he didn’t want to talk about it. He wanted to ignore it all and have her tell him more stories about his family. He would, in turn, share meaningless anecdotes about school and work and then she would leave and he would be alone again. But that didn’t sound like a very healthy option and he decided that he actually did want to talk about it. He wanted to tell someone about Oliver because he wanted to talk about Oliver again like Oliver was still a part of Connor’s life. 

“Yeah. Yeah. Let’s talk about it.” Connor paused to take a sip of his coffee and wondered where he could possibly begin. He figured it was one of those times where it was best to begin at the beginning. “Okay. Well, I guess it all started few weeks ago. That professor I work for, Professor Keating, Annalise Keating. Anyways, I was in this bar, working on this case of hers and I met someone. I met Oliver.” 

Then it was all spilling forth and Connor wasn’t sure he could have stopped it if he tried. 

He told Elsbeth how he and Oliver met, the easy mark with the blush and shy smile. He told her about how he felt after that first night. The connection between the two of them that Connor had never had with anyone before. How he had almost fucked the whole thing up a few days later when he canceled on Oliver last minute. The guilt he felt about it surprising him and showing up at Oliver’s door with takeout and no ulterior motive for once, just a desire to have dinner and be welcomed back in again. He told her about Oliver shutting the door in his face but then, by some miracle, opening it back up and letting Connor back in. 

He spared his sister explicit details of how fucking mind-blowing their sort of make-up sex had been (there are some things you just don’t tell your siblings no matter how close) but he did tell her how that next morning had been the first time the morning after routine hadn’t felt awkward at all. Their interactions hadn’t been forced and they had sort of fallen into an easy rhythm, comfortable around each other. 

Connor wondered to Elsbeth out loud if it was because sometime during the night they both realized that this wasn’t going to be just another one-night-ish stand. They were going to see each other again. This wasn’t just one of those random sexual encounters that was fun but fleeting. Elsbeth didn’t give her opinion. She met his eyes with a sympathetic gaze and gave a noncommittal nod. Prompting him to continue as they slowly picked at the waffles and omelet that had arrived. When had their meals been brought out?

Connor went on and told her how he couldn’t stop texting Oliver throughout the day. At court. At class. At work. Hell even at the gym. He couldn’t seem to stop himself and didn’t even care how needy it might make him seem because Oliver was right there texting along with him. At least they were both being needy together, right? And it wasn’t even just sexting, which Oliver really didn’t participate in anyway. It had all been random, boring texts about what idiotic thing Asher had done or how Oliver’s coworkers were all so nerdy even Oliver was sometimes embarrassed by it. Texts about Connor had for lunch or what Oliver thought during his bus ride to work. Connor feeling out Oliver’s plans for any given night and how seeing easily those plans could be altered for some minor illegal hacking and sex. Oliver linking Connor to articles he found interesting and hinting at films they should maybe possibly see over the weekend if Connor wasn’t too busy acting like they weren’t a couple. Connor giving Oliver updates on cases he had told them about while they weren’t cuddling in bed at night because Connor Walsh didn’t cuddle. Oliver keeping Connor abreast on the progress of his latest work project that Connor still didn’t fully understand even though Oliver had explained it to him (again!) over dinner the night before. Oliver texting he was thinking about Connor during the day and Connor sending back stupid emoticons because he wasn’t really sure what to do with that information even though he was thinking about Oliver too.

Connor shook his head, cutting himself off when he realized he was rambling on about texting. Elsbeth didn’t need to know any of that. None of that was relevant to the breakdown this morning. He needed to get back on track. She didn’t need to hear about how much he and Oliver had abused his unlimited texting privileges.

He went back to the story at hand and told her about seeing Aiden kissing Michaela on that porch. Connor told her about being so unsettled after that day he went to Oliver's that night and they just held each other. Not kissing or really even touching or any of the normal things Connor would have done to get out of a moment that screamed of intimacy. They had just held each other, laid out across Oliver’s couch and Connor dozed, lulled off to sleep listening to Oliver’s heartbeat under his ear. He hadn’t wanted that feeling of being safe, being loved, to ever end. Connor trailed off as he told her about that night. 

He didn’t tell her that that night was the first night they had spent together and hadn’t had sex. Connor didn’t tell his sister how they had woken up to Oliver’s phone alarm, disoriented and tangled up in each other. Neither man said much as they stumbled around each other getting ready for work and class but their eyes kept meeting over toothbrushes and coffee cups and Connor couldn’t stop smiling all morning. Laurel had given him a knowing smile when he sat next to her on Professor Keating’s couch and offered up half of her granola bar. He didn’t tell any of that to his sister because he that the foresight to know what was coming up next. It was one of the few perks to being the one telling this story. Connor didn’t tell his sister that about how that morning had been a first for them because he knew about the night that was their last.

Connor then filled Elsbeth in on the fight he and Oliver got into when Connor told him about the whole incident between Aiden and Michaela in the bar and then his conversation the next day with Michaela in court. Connor had been off after the whole encounter and Oliver had finally pushed him into talking about it with his gentle, but pointed, questions. Finishing the story, Connor had assumed Oliver would give him an understanding look and maybe they could lay on the couch again and hold each other, which had been much nicer than Connor thought it would be, but none of that had happened. The mild-mannered IT nerd Connor was familiar with was gone only to be replaced with a very angry and very articulate Oliver (who Connor was a little ashamed to say he found fucking hot). Oliver had started yelling at him. “What were you thinking?” and “We don't out each other Connor!” and “You need to apologize to them” were the general themes of the one-sided argument. Every time Connor attempted to open his mouth to defend himself Oliver cut him off with an “And another thing!” or “There is no excuse for that kind of behavior Connor!” 

Connor explained to his sister, who clearly was on Oliver’s side of this argument and what the fuck was family for if not for taking your side in things, how he had given Michaela a half-ass apology that they both knew was mostly bullshit and had only done so because Oliver refused to answer any of his texts until he did. Connor had told Michaela to tell Aiden he was sorry too and asked for his number to make an apology call 'in person' since he no longer had his number and Aiden had, unsurprisingly, unfriended him on Facebook. Michaela refused at the time to give him the number, saying she needed to see if Aiden wanted to speak with Connor after what happened first. He had understood, of course but he also had yet to either get Aiden's number from Michaela or call from the man so he still harbored his doubts about his apology getting past on. But the ‘apology’ had worked and eventually Oliver let him back in again.

He paused in the flow of the story, as Maggie appeared to clear their breakfast plates and bring a new carafe of coffee. Connor wondered if Elsbeth would just let him stop telling it all now. He didn’t want to tell Elsbeth about the next part. He didn’t want to let himself remember all that had happened. He had spent the last seventeen days doing his best to forget all that came next. 

Connor considered doing some quick revisions to the chain of events to end the story now. Say something about how Oliver hadn’t really forgiven him for the whole outing Aiden thing and kicked him back out. Something about how Oliver then went crazy and Connor ended things because it turned out the nerd was nuts. Or Oliver had a secret boyfriend who was in a biker gang and wore nothing but leather so Connor ended things because he didn’t want his face bashed into concrete. However nothing remotely plausible was coming to mind and, when Elsbeth met his eyes with her patient ones, Connor realized he needed to finish it. 

Connor put down his coffee cup and twisted it on the saucer as everything about the whole Paxton debacle began to flow out. Again, he spared his sister the explicit detail about what happened between the two of them but even without it she managed to catch on well enough. He searched her face as he relayed the beginning of the end of his non-relationship with Oliver but her eyes that had been so expressive moments before gave nothing away. No hint of what she was thinking. No glimpse into her feelings on the matter. Elsbeth was stoic as she met his gaze and feared he wasn’t coming out as much of a victim in this story as he originally perceived himself to be. 

He faltered a little when he came to the part when Marren Trudeau was ripping open Paxton’s old hurts of his painful coming out and family rejection. Retelling the way that Marren had rubbed salt in the wounds that Paxton had, most likely, worked for years to cover up, brought something out in Connor and for the first time in the recitation of the story Elsbeth interrupted him. 

“Connor, you didn’t kill that man,” Elsbeth said.

“Are you even listening?” he shot back. “The guy flung himself out a window because of something I did.”

“No,” she shook her head. “He chose to end his life because he had committed a crime and had gotten caught and was facing jail. You didn’t drive him out that window, Con. That was his choice.”

“Hell of a choice he had.” Connor blinked back the tears filling his eyes. “Suicide or decades in prison. Being raped on a daily basis and god knows what else. And, on top of all that, having a family that wouldn’t support you. Being reminded as you hit rock bottom that they never supported you in the first place.” His voice broke on that and he looked away. After a few moments of silence broken only by uneasy breaths, he went on. “Suicide must have looked pretty good right then.”

“Connor,” she began but he could tell by the tone of his name that she wasn’t getting it.

“No, Elsie,” he cut her off. “No. You weren’t there. You didn’t see him. You didn’t see his face as she tore into him. You didn’t…,” Connor swallowed down the sob rising in his throat. “You didn’t see.”

“No. I didn’t see.” Elsbeth was quiet as Connor regained his composure. He had already had one breakdown this morning he wasn’t having another one. “But Connor, you are not at fault for that man killing himself.”

“Well then, we will just have to agree to disagree,” he snapped with an ill-timed smirk. He took a purposeful drink of his coffee and let the silence between them grow. Now he didn’t want to finish this story anymore but pressed on anyway. 

He found himself relaying the details of the recording being discovered and getting kicked out of a place and a relationship he hadn’t realized were so necessary with the detached monotone of a newscaster. Simply the facts. No embellishments, no emotions. Connor glossed over the tears he'd see in Oliver's eyes. The hitch in Oliver’s voice when he told Connor to get out. The cold sweat that had broken out over Connor’s body when he realized what Oliver was listening to in the bedroom while he was in the kitchen. The panic and nausea tampered down as he made the short distance from the kitchen to the bedroom. None of that was important to the story. His sister didn’t need to know any of that.

“So that's that.” Connor finished and looked up. He attempted to shoot her a smirk but even without being able to see his face he knew it fell short. “That's the whole sorry story.”

He finished the tale and sat back in the chair. Re-crossing his legs, he ran a hand up his thigh, brushing imaginary crumbs off his pants and took in the room to avoid looking at Elsbeth. The uncomfortable silence stretched out between them and Connor was afraid to meet her gaze because, over the course of the story, he could feel that he’d lost Elsbeth’s support. When she first arrived on his doorstep, she had been concerned for him. She had been worried and come to help him. But now she was angry. She was upset not for him but at him. 

Connor wondered at what moment precisely he had lost her, where the tipping point had fallen. Was it when he had outed Aiden? Or when he had been cruel to Michaela? Maybe it was fucking Paxton when he was in a relationship, albeit unknowingly, with Oliver? Perhaps it was the hand it played in Paxton’s suicide? Or possibly it was the grand finale of the whole debacle when he had royally fucked everything up with Oliver by forgetting the first rule of cheaters- leave no trace. There were just so many winning moments for her to take her pick from.

Eventually the quiet stretched out too long and he couldn’t take it any more. “Nothing to say. Really? No comeback. No yelling. I would have figured there would at least be more yelling.”

“No Con,” Elsbeth smiled grimly at that. “No yelling. Just thinking.” She blew the bangs out of her face and picked up her coffee cup. “It's no wonder you haven't reached out to us. That's a lot of shit to bury under booze and strange.”

Connor let out a laugh at that but it was joyless. She wasn’t wrong. He let out another laugh and then another but to his own ears they sounded almost hysterical and he put a hand over his mouth to stifle the rest back down and hold back a question that he was anxious to ask. The one question he hadn’t even let himself think since the moment the door of 303 slammed in his face. “Why didn’t I just delete that fucking recording Elsie?” His voice broke again but this time he made no move to hide it. “Why did I keep it? What was I thinking?”

“I don’t know, Con. I don’t know,” Elsbeth said softly, setting down the cup and reaching across the table to grab his hand. “You want my take on it anyway.”

“Please.” Connor nodded. 

“It’s your pattern Con,” she said after a beat. “You two were getting too close for comfort and so you made sure to fuck it up.”

Well that was just bullshit, he thought and pulled his hand out of hers. “I’ve never pulled this shit with guys before.” Connor had never let himself get into a relationship like he had with Oliver ever before. Hell, he’d never even been on more than three consecutive dates with someone before. “This isn’t my pattern.”

“Not with guys, no,” she conceded. “But this is what you do. Whenever you want something, really really want it, you manage to do something to screw it up.”

“That's not true.”

“Yes it is.”

“Look where we're sitting Elsie,” Connor said as he gestured around them. “In a restaurant in Philadelphia. Blocks from the Middleton campus because I wanted to go to one of the best law schools in the country and look. Look around you. Here we are.”

“Yes. And I'm not saying you didn’t work hard for all of this Connor. I’m not saying that you didn’t earn your place here. But this,” Elsbeth also waved a hand about the room. “All of this is not what you wanted.”

“What?” Connor shook his head. His sister was insane. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You never really wanted to be a lawyer.”

“That’s not true,” he threw the words at her.

“It is true,” Elsbeth volleyed back. “This is Bruce's dream for you. For you to go to his alma mater, graduate with honors, join him at his firm and slip right in to his life. Bruce 2.0. This is not what you wanted for your life.”

“I enjoy what I do,” he spit out at her through clenched teeth. “I like what I am learning. I choose this.”

“Connor,” she pleaded, changing gears. “I’m not saying any of that. I’m saying you don’t like it or aren’t good at it or even that you aren’t going to make a great lawyer.” She waited until he looked her in the eye. “Because I know you are. I’m just saying that maybe if you hadn’t been told by Bruce that this is what your life was going to be since before you could talk that maybe this isn’t necessarily what you would have picked.”

“Okay fine,” Connor sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Then what do I want to be when I grow up.”

“I don't know Con,” Elsbeth shrugged. “I really don’t. And given the various applications dates and internships and fellowship posts that you mentioned in passing over the years, I don’t really know if you do either. But the point is, that you talked about all those things with me, all those opportunities to figure out what you wanted, and then you let all the due dates slip by. You shot yourself in the foot before you got out of the gate.” She let that roll around in his head for a minute before continuing. “And it sounds like that’s what happened with this Oliver guy. You met someone who was fun and nice and called you on your shit. Someone you could see breaking some of those walls you’ve spent years building up and maybe actually have something with for once. And the relationship freaked you out—”

“We were not in a relationship,” Connor cut her off.

“Bullshit you weren’t in a relationship,” Elsbeth said. “How many nights were you at each other’s places in a given week?” Somehow Connor knew that saying nearly every night was not the correct response to that answer. “I take from the silence it was more than a night here or there.” He gave her the briefest of nods. “Okay. So you spent nights together. What about days? What about the weekends? When you weren’t studying and he wasn’t doing whatever he did, were you two together? Did you have dinner? Meet each other’s friends? See family?”

When Elsbeth trailed off, Connor glared at her before responding. That tone she was using was insulting. “I met his brother on accident. Once.”

“How do you meet someone’s brother on accident Connor?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. This was not going well. “Accidentally.”

“No,” she shook her head. “Nope. Not good enough. I want the story. How come you never brought him home to meet us accidentally?”

“It was a hockey game,” Connor began.

“You went to a hockey game!?!”

“No.” But she didn’t need to sound so surprised. Like him going to a hockey game was so inconceivable. “We were watching the game at his place—“

“You were watching hockey!?!”

“Elsbeth,” Connor snapped. Enough was enough. “He was watching hockey and in the middle of the last period, his brother shows up. Something about his kid was sick and he wife told him to watch the game somewhere else. I don’t know. Wasn’t listening. We shook hands. Exchanged all of five words and then they went back to watching the game and I studied. He stayed for a beer after it was over and then went back to his family.” Connor didn’t tell her that he had spent the rest of the game watching Oliver interact with his brother. He didn’t want to tell her that he found their gentle teasing back and forth adorable.

“Can’t believe I didn’t get to accidentally meet your boyfriend,” she muttered into her coffee cup, taking a sip.

“You live states away.”

“There are trains, Connor!”

“Anyway, that wasn’t the point,” he said. “You asked if we met each other’s friends. No. Never met friends. Never really talked about family. I was busy on weekends and so was he so we didn’t ‘hang out’ a ton.” He added the air quotes because staying he was ‘hanging out’ with someone he was also fucking made him feel like a teenager. “I mean sometimes but it wasn’t, like, a regular thing. We had dinner most of the time but never like date dinners. Just apartment dinners. Take out. Cold pizza. Leftovers.”

“So, let me get this straight.” Elsbeth sat up a little in her chair and adopted her lecturing stance again, ticking off points with her fingers. “You two spent almost every night together. You met someone in his family. Then, on the weekends, after you studied and he did whatever it was he did you two would get together at one of your places to cook dinner together and be sickeningly domestic.”

Well, when you put it all that way it did sound like a relationship. “We never said we were exclusive,” he said in a petulant tone that made him feel like a child.

“Oh my god! Are you five?” Elsbeth exclaimed. “You’re a grown man Connor? You shouldn’t have to have the ‘Are you my boyfriend?’ conversation with someone to prevent you from sleeping with strangers. You just don’t sleep with strangers. Period. End of discussion.”

“But we never said—“

“I don’t care what you never said.” She held up a hand to cut him off and he decided he liked it better before when she was talking down to him. “We aren’t debating the moral relativism of cheating and what constitutes a relationship. You simply don’t fuck strangers when for the last few weeks you had only been sleeping with one person. It’s just basic Con.” 

“You think I don’t know all of this,” he all but shouted at her. Her uppity attitude wasn’t just annoying anymore; it was pissing him off. “You think I haven’t realized all of this!” 

“It doesn’t count because you realized it after he kicked you out. Like he should have,” she shouted back and Maggie popped back up in the entranceway to double check everything was still okay. There were some dishes she probably could clear away but it sounded like they were going at it and she wasn’t being paid enough to interrupt family fights. She ducked back out again as Elsbeth continued to rant at Connor. “It’s a shame I didn’t get to accidentally meet this Oliver. It sounds like I would like this guy. He doesn’t put up with any of your shit. So he’s an automatic improvement over every other guy who’s blown in and out over the last few years. Oh, I’m sorry. That was probably a poor choice of words.”

“It certainly was!” Connor barked back and the two siblings stared at each other. Then in a much calmer, albeit patronizing, tone, he continued. “Well this is all very helpful. Thank you so much for your insight. I didn’t know I was a piece of shit before so thanks for point it out.” 

“Connor—“

“Just leave it Elsie.” His demeanor was resigned now. Feeling the beginnings of a migraine, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “You can’t say anything more and believe me I’ve said it all to myself. “

Elsbeth reached down to pull her purse onto her lap. She dug two aspirin out and offered them up. “So what are you going to do?” 

“I don’t think there is anything to do.” He took the pills and nodded his thanks. 

“There’s always something to do.” 

“I don’t think so.” Connor washed the pills down with his cold coffee. “He asked me to stop texting him. I think I was in a kind of a kneejerk panic at first and went a little overboard. I don’t really want to try that again. I think he’d take out a restraining order or something.” 

“Okay. Then…email? Facebook? You could tweet him,” she said with a smile, trying to get a rise. “That wouldn’t be weird at all.”

“No.” He did laugh but it was joyless. “I think…I think I just got to call it. It’s over. It was what it was. My first relationship. Kaput.” He mimicked an explosion with his hands and then ran one over his mouth again. It was the first time he had let himself admit it really was over. There wasn’t any coming back from this one. He’d fucked up. There were no two ways about it.

“Well,” Elsbeth said after a lengthy pause. “I always knew your first relationship was going to be an epic failure.” 

“Really?” He gave another mirthless laugh. “Thanks for the vote of confidence Elsie. Don’t pull any punches.”

“It’s not our style, Con.” She gave a sympathetic smile and reached a hand across the table. He took it and Elsbeth rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. Connor sensed she wanted to hug him but neither made a move to stand. His father wasn’t the only Walsh man who didn’t really think things like hugs were necessary. “It’s gonna be okay Connor. I know it sucks now but it’s going to be okay. It just takes some time.” He nodded at that and they sat there for a while with her rubbing a thumb over the back of his hand.

“So,” Connor said after a pause and glanced at his watch. It was nearly noon. “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”

“There’s a train heading out early tonight. Could I impose on you for a little while longer?” She was quick to add, “If it’s a problem, just drop me at a Panera or something. I’ll be fine.”

“No. Of course not. It’s fine.” He was insulted she’d think that. “I’ve got to study. Probably going to get called into work.” Connor pulled out his phone, a little surprised that he hadn’t gotten a text from Bonnie calling the group in already. “Clean my apartment,” he added with a smirk and she smiled.

They both stood and pulled on their coats. Connor took out his wallet and dropped a few bills on the table to cover their meal and leave a substantial tip for Maggie as an apology for camping out all morning. He took them on the long way back to his apartment and pointed out some of the buildings he frequented on campus. Elsbeth knew the school of course, Bruce was a very active member of the alumni and had dragged the family to visit multiple times, but it was different now that he actually went here.

On the long way back to his apartment, the text he was expecting from Bonnie all morning came in summoning him and the others to Prof. Keating’s office. Instead of driving all the way back to his place only to turn around, Connor headed over to Prof. Keating’s office and he gave Elsbeth the keys to take the car back home. 

“Please don’t clean or anything when you get there,” he pleads as they switch in the driveway. “I feel like enough of a slob as it is.”

“I make no promises, Con,” Elsbeth said with a smile and hopped in his car. Adjusting the seat, she waved to Laurel and Asher who were walking up the front steps before backing out and driving off.

“So, who’s the chick?” Asher asked by way of a greeting as Connor joined the pair on the porch. 

Laurel shot Asher one of her trademark side-eye looks as Connor answered, “My sister.”

“Nice,” Asher nodded as they made their way inside. “So, is she gonna be around for a while or…” He trailed off at the look Connor shot him as they made their way inside. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent working on research and trying to stay awake. Spending the morning sharing the last few weeks’ events with his sister had exhausted him. Connor was grateful when Prof. Keating called an early end to their Sunday and sent them all home a few hours later. He bummed a ride home from Laurel and was shocked when he opened his door. 

His apartment was clean, really clean. The laundry he’d left piled in front of the machine was all gone and he could hear the dryer running. The carpet looked freshly vacuumed and the tables were polished. A thick candle he didn’t know he owned was burning on the coffee table an all the clutter from the morning was neatly put away. The dishes were gone from the kitchen counters and they were gleaming. Connor peered down the hall and saw that the bathroom also looked like it had been scrubbed down and his bedroom also looked tided, at least the sliver of it he could see looked tided. Elsbeth was in the kitchen, cooking something on the stove that smelled heavenly. 

“I told you not to clean,” Connor called to her as he toed of his shoes and threw his briefcase on the couch. 

“Jesus, Con,” Elsbeth shouted as she jumped. “Announce yourself.”

“I did,” he muttered and took a stool at the breakfast bar. There was a bowl of fruit on the counter and a fresh loaf replaced the bread that had been molding this morning. Elsbeth opened the fridge to grab him a water and he saw it was completely stocked. Without even looking, he knew the pantry was fully stocked too. That explained the candle; Elsbeth had gone shopping. He nodded in thanks when she slid the bottle across the counter. “You didn’t have to do any of this Elsie.”

“I know.” Elsbeth shrugged and bent down to check on whatever she had baking in the oven. “But I wanted to big brother.” She stood and snagged his water to take a sip. “You’ve been through the ringer.”

“Well. Thanks,” Connor said, uncomfortable, and took a pull off the bottle. “What’s for dinner?”

“Chicken stars.” They were an old family dinner that Clarice used to make on their chef, Francine’s, day off. A chicken and cream cheese filling was stuffed into crescent rolls, then covered in breadcrumbs and baked and served with gravy. Despite years of lessons with Francine, chicken stars were the only thing Connor actually knew how to cook that wasn’t boil water and add pasta. They were, quite simply, his favorite things in the world and Elsbeth made them for him. Sometimes he really just loved his sister. “I think we’ve got about five minutes.” 

Elsbeth, very comfortable in his kitchen, took down plates and got out silverware. Passing them to Connor to set the table, she then pulled a salad out of the fridge. When the oven timer went off, she plated the stars and they sat down to eat. They shared a pleasant meal with her telling him more stories about the family and him giving her all the details about school and work that he had skipped over this morning. Neither of them brought up Oliver until they had finished with dinner and they were getting ready to leave to drop Elsbeth at her train. 

“Oh. I took some of your suits and stuff to the cleaners.” She pointed out the receipt stuck to the fridge. “They were the only ones open late on Sunday so they will probably charge an arm and a leg but I don’t think you had another suit to make it pass Tuesday.” Connor opened his mouth to say thanks but she just continued. “And I didn’t know where your clothes went so they are all just piled on the bed. Well, folded and then piled on the bed.” Elsbeth dug in her purse, checking that she had everything before they headed out. “And I didn’t touch that box in there.”

“Sounds good,” he said quickly as they headed out the door. 

Connor didn’t have to ask her what box. It had shown up on his door last Saturday morning after he got back from his run. He had seen the plain box that he had instantly known Oliver had seen him and that nameless stranger in the club the night before. Oliver had seen and now here was a box of the stuff Connor had left over at his place. That couldn’t be a good sign. He had peered inside the box to find a watch, two belts, a couple pairs of boxers, dress socks, assorted hair products, a textbook that he had honestly thought he’d lost, and a half eaten box of Apple Jacks cereal. It was the cereal that made him carefully place the lid back on the box and hide it under piles of clothes and blankets in his bedroom. 

The drive to the train station was quiet. After a few passes around the block with no luck, Connor pulled his car off to the side in front of a hydrant and flicked on the hazards. “I guess this is the best we’ve got,” he said to Elsbeth, turning in his seat. “No tearful goodbyes for us.”

“Not our style, Con,” Elsbeth said with a practiced smirk. “You promise to call us. Even if you have nothing to report, you call us.”

“Yes ma’am,” Connor responded. “I promise.”

“Good,” she pointed a finger at him. “No falling off the face of the Earth again.”

“No falling off. Got it.” They shared an easy grin. 

“And keep your apartment clean.” Connor nodded. “And eat that fruit I bought you. And the vegetables. And call your mom too. And make better choices. And don’t sleep with so many strange men.” That earned her a look. “Well, at least wear a condom when you sleep with strange men.”

“Of course, little sister.” A rude honk interrupted them. “I think that’s your cue.”

“One more thing,” Elsbeth reached out to grab his hand. “Don’t give up on Oliver.” Connor opened his mouth to interrupt but she pressed on. “I know. It’s over and hopeless and you need to move on. But I’ve got a feeling Con. Just don’t shut that door completely.”

Connor opened his mouth but wasn’t sure what to say so he just nodded again and felt foolish. She reached across and gave him an awkward hug. “Text when you get on the train and home and everything.”

“I will. Love you big brother.” Connor responded in kind and she got out of the car. He watched as she walked into the building. Elsbeth turned to wave goodbye one last time through the door and he waved back. Despite the silence, he didn’t turn on the radio on the way home and, for the first time in seventeen days, actually enjoyed the sound of his own thoughts. 

Arriving back, Connor folded the clothes from the dryer and started the last load. He put his clothes away and then set himself up at his kitchen table to study. He hadn’t gotten much done the past few weeks and there was quite a bit he needed to catch up on. Periodically, the phone would ping with updates from Elsbeth. She had gotten on the train all right but it was going to be delayed out of the station. One of the perks of trains was that they were not always the most reliable form of transportation. Connor did his best to keep her entertained until the train finally departed and she let him know she was turning the phone off to save the battery. 

Seeing how late it was, Connor figured it was time for him to get some sleep too. The day had been draining and maybe tonight he could finally get a decent night’s sleep. Going to his bedroom, Connor peeled off his clothes and pulled on a long sleeved shirt and pajama bottoms. He turned to throw the dirty clothes in the now empty basket and crawled into bed for a dreamless sleep. 

Hours later, Connor woke to the pinging of his phone. Swiping open the screen, he saw it was a text from Elsbeth letting him know that she’d finally made it back after a night of delays. He shot off a quick reply and tossed the phone back onto the bedside table. There were still a few hours before his alarm was set to go off. He tossed and turned for a while before giving up on sleep all together. Throwing off the comforter, Connor got up and changed into running clothes. Since he was up before it was even light out, he might as well have a productive morning. Turning to throw the PJs into the hamper, Connor spotted the box from Oliver on the floor. 

Elsbeth, true to her word, hadn’t done so much as move it from the spot next to his dresser where he’d hidden it last week. Ditching the clothes, Connor picked up the box and set it on the bed. He pulled out the watch and tossed it on the dresser with his others. The pieces of clothing all went into the hamper to get washed, which was rapidly filling again. The belts he wrapped in a circle and placed on the shelf in his closet. He carried out the book and hair products to the kitchen table and bathroom, respectively until the last thing left was the cereal. 

Connor pulled out the box of Apple Jacks and sat on the edge of the bed, holding it between his knees. He figured he should just pitch it; it had to be beyond stale by now, but made no move to do so. The cereal had been a sort of inside joke between the two of them, a ritual of sorts that they shared as a couple, and Connor wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the evidence of it.

It started one Saturday night. Oliver had showed up at his door in the middle of the night with not so much as a text in warning. Connor opened the door to Oliver leaning against the jam, eyes closed as he tapped out a soft rhythm on the door with his knuckles. His hair was slightly mused like Oliver had spent most of the night running his hand over it and his glasses were slipping down his nose. He reeked of beer and…was that pot?

“Oh good. You’re up.” Oliver smiled and stood up. He reached out to cradle Connor’s face in his hands and leaned in to kiss him, twice, soft and sweet. “Do you have any cereal?”

Connor held Oliver’s wrists in a loose grip and pulled him into the apartment. Oliver knocked the door closed with his foot, not letting go of Connor’s face. Connor tilted his head back and took in Oliver’s loopy smile, dazed expression and somewhat lethargic demeanor and concluded that the other man was high. He had never seen Oliver anything more than slightly tipsy in their two weeks of almost constant time together. This was going to be good. “You want cereal.”

Oliver nodded and rested his forehead against Connor’s. They stood like that for a moment, breathing each other in in a way that should have felt odd to Connor but actually felt like the most natural thing in the world after a day spent apart. “I remember you telling me some sad story over breakfast once about your childhood and nannies and you said that you weren’t allowed to eat Lucky Charms.” Oliver pulled back and trailed his hands down Connor’s neck, over his ears, through his hair and down his chest to grip his hips. He pulled Connor closer and pressed more of those soft, sweet kisses under his ear, down his neck and then up the other side. “You seem like the type to be overcompensating for childhood wrongs and I figured you would have a stash or something.” He stopped mouthing Connor’s neck to meet his eyes. “I really want Lucky Charms.”

“Really?” Oliver made a noise of agreement and went back to nosing Connor’s collar open a little to suck a mark into his shoulder. “What you gonna give me for ‘em?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver said in a flirty tone and gave him a wink. Biting his lip, he palmed Connor through the dress pants he’d never changed out of after the Saturday spent at the office and library. “I’m sure we could figure out something.” And went back to mouthing kisses down Connor’s neck. Fuck. If this was Oliver was like high, Connor was finding out wherever he’d stashed his pipe after undergrad because they needed to start doing this more often. 

“Oh wait,” Oliver said and pulled back. Connor wanted to demand what the fuck he meant by wait but Oliver was focused on getting something out of the wallet he’d pulled out of his back pocket. He grinned and held up the joint he’d concealed. “I brought a present. A peace offering for waking you up.”

“I liked the peace offering you were working on before.” Connor muttered to himself and took the joint as Oliver laughed, low and dirty, and walked off to the kitchen. 

Clearly calling a temporary halt to the spontaneous groping session that left Connor half hard in his doorway, Oliver reached into the pantry to grab the box of Lucky Charms and hopped up on the kitchen counter as Connor followed. Turning to rest his back against the wall instead of the cabinets, he pulled one leg up to rest on the counter and watched Connor pull a lighter out of his junk drawer to light the joint while reaching in the box to grab a handful of cereal. “So how was your day?” Oliver asked around a mouthful of cereal.

“Chew with your mouth closed,” Connor scolded and took a hit. Oliver made an exaggerated display of chewing and swallowing the food in his mouth. He opened his mouth for Connor to inspect and Connor gave a laugh that also, conveniently, covered his cough. It had been a while since he’d smoked. “Much better,” Connor acknowledged and continued. “Day was fine. Nothing special. How was your day? Where did you go to get like this?”

“I told you,” Oliver shook the box before reaching in to pull out another handful. There were not enough marshmallows in this box. “Brad, my college roommate. His bachelor party.”

“Right,” Connor nodded. He had totally been paying attention when Oliver told him that this morning. “How was it?” Connor held the joint out to Oliver who shook his head no before taking another pull himself. 

“You know. It was fine.” Oliver hopped down and went back to the pantry. Connor had clearly eaten most of the marshmallows out of this box and he had seen Captain Crunch in there before. It was handy having a boyfriend, nope, not boyfriend, lover maybe? Lover could work. It was handy having a lover whose breakfast palate resembled a ten-year-olds’. New box in hand, Oliver resumed his post on the counter. “We drank. We smoked. We celebrated his upcoming nuptials in the traditional fashion and I stayed as long as I could take it.” Connor nodded at that in understanding. “And you don’t get to just say your day was fine. You had that new client meeting today.” 

“Oh that. It was fine,” Connor said and Oliver huffed at that in frustration. “What do you want?”

“Details Con,” Oliver said. “I want details. How’d it go? Really?”

“You get away with sharing no details,” Connor muttered and Oliver rolled his eyes. He kept forgetting that when Oliver asked how Connor how his day went he really wanted to know. Daily, Oliver would gently prod and push and ask questions in that sincere tone until Connor broke down and told the other man everything about what had happened over the course of the day. He still wasn’t used to someone being so genuinely interested in his life.

“You really want all the details from my adventure in at a bachelor party?” Oliver questioned and took the joint from Connor’s outstretched hand. “What story should I share first? How Brad’s coworkers thought it would be super funny to buy me lap dances? Or how his brother, who I had met before so I don’t really know what his deal was, was having in gay panic the whole night like I was going to all of a sudden start hitting on a married, straight man with a receding hairline and beer gut?” He paused to take a pull of the joint before handing it back. “I could tell the story about how Brad got so drunk he started crying in the middle of the club and tried to wrestle his best man to the ground for his phone to call Kathy but I think that’s more of a ‘you had to be there’ story.”

“Alright. Sorry,” Connor apologized. “Sorry I pushed.”

“It’s fine,” Oliver shrugged off the apology and went back to eating cereal right out of the box. “It just…Brad’s cool. His friends are not. I knew I shouldn’t have gone but,” he shrugged again and that somehow said it all. After a moment while Oliver chewed and Connor smoked, Oliver prompted him again. “So. Details, Con.” 

“Right,” Connor began and filled Oliver in on the new case Professor Keating had taken on and the case prep they had done in the morning. His torts study group that had met up in the afternoon to review before the upcoming test and Keating called everyone in again later that night for a recap to the progress of the day and to roll out assignments for tomorrow. Overall, he hadn’t been lying when he said nothing much had happened that day. It had been a very normal day followed by a very normal night of studying. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened but he realized as he was relaying the day’s events that the entire day had left a sour taste in is mouth. The more he told Oliver the more off he felt. Nothing had happened to justified the weird mood he was working himself into but there was no denying that all of sudden he was pissed about the day for no reason at all. He tried to conceal his mood shift from Oliver. Normal Oliver would want to talk about it and so he imagined that High Oliver would want to talk about it too and he just wasn’t in the mood to psychoanalyze his day. 

“So that was that,” Connor finished with a shrug. “After Keating let us go, came back to study and wait for you to show up to tease me and split a joint in my kitchen.” He tried to joke as he finished the story. Hopefully Oliver was too gone to notice Connor’s ridiculous and inappropriate anger.

Oliver tiled his head and gave Connor one of those measured looks that he hated. Sometimes Oliver was so intense. It was…weird. Not necessarily bad just weird. No one had ever paid this much attention to him before. “So why are you pissed?”

“I’m not pissed.”

“Bullshit.” Oliver hopped off the counter to put the cereal box back in the pantry. He stood leaning against the counter so he and Connor were facing each other and waited.

“It was nothing.” At that Oliver tilted his head and gave Connor a bland look. “Okay. Fine. It was this weird thing with Asher this morning.” He must really be upset if all it took was a glare and head tilt for him to start spilling. “Me and him and Wes and Frank were all standing around, BSing this morning. Just what we did on Friday. Updates on the case. Just a ton of crap, right?” Connor ran a hand through his hair and tugged at the strands a little, getting more agitated as he talked. “And Asher starts up about this girl he met at the bar the night before. And he starts getting really graphic about it, you know? Talking about how wet she was and how deep she took him, cum running down her chin, and how hard she came. And it just was…” he trailed off. 

“Uncomfortable?” Oliver tried.

“Well, that,” Connor allowed. “But also…I don’t know. Just. It was like he was bragging or something and I…” Connor trailed off again not wanting to finish the thought. 

Oliver stared at him for a minute and then broke out in a grin. “It made you mad because you wanted to talk about what we did last night.”

“No it didn’t.” Connor refused to meet Oliver’s gaze and stared at the floor.

“It totally did.” Oliver paused, gaging Connor’s mood before continuing. “You going to tell those nice, straight boys at work how you spent a good chunk of last night on your knees.” Oliver gave him a look far dirtier than Connor thought the other man was capable of and took the few steps across the kitchen to crowd Connor against the counter. Oliver tilted his head to whisper slowly in Connor’s ear, his warm breath sending shivers down Connor’s back. “My hands in your hair. Yours behind your back. All submissive and needy. Giving me all the power to move you how I wanted. How I needed. Letting me fuck your mouth, open and loose. So goddamn hot I had to bite the inside of my cheek until it bled to keep from coming whenever you looked up at me with those obedient eyes.” Oliver put his hands in Connor’s hair to pull him back so those eyes met his. “And then, when I came, you swallowed every drop down and licked me clean. Loving every minute of it like the cumslut you don’t think you are.” Oliver paused and ground their hips together as Connor let out a whimper. “Or maybe that’s not the kind of story you want them to hear. Maybe you want to tell them about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” Connor whispered as Oliver ran his hands down Connor’s chest to grip his hips and pull them closer. Oliver mouthed open, wet kisses over Connor’s neck, careful not to suck too hard and leave a mark. Connor didn’t mind marks he could hide but bruises on his neck made that tricky. 

“Yeah, I have big plans for tomorrow.” Oliver rested his forehead against Connor’s and they breathed each other in. Connor slipped his hand under Oliver’s t-shirt to rest on the small of his back while the other hand slipped down palm Oliver through his jeans. “Tomorrow afternoon, you’re going to lay me out across that ridiculously large bed of yours.”

“My bed’s not ridiculously large,” Connor murmured and ran kisses over Oliver’s jaw and cheeks. Over his closed eyelids and down his nose. Up his neck to the shell of his ear where he stopped to nip at his earlobe.

“Shut up, it is,” Oliver breathed, his cheek resting against Connor’s head, his nose buried in Connor’s hair. “I’m laid across it. And you are taking your time opening me up. It’s so long and slow it feels like hours. I’m wet and sloppy and so so loose from your tongue and fingers. You keep alternating between soft and sweet and hard and fast and I can’t keep up.” Connor worked open Oliver’s jeans and brought a hand up to lick his palm before shoving it down to stroke Oliver’s length as he continued. “Oh fuck Con. I’m so fucking desperate for it that I’m begging, tears on my cheeks. My voice keeps breaking as I’m pleading for you to just fuck me already. Please…just…oh god.” His voice did break as Connor reached down to fondle his balls. 

When it didn’t seem like he was going to continue, Connor backed off a little and resumed stroking his cock in teasing touches that were entirely too soft. “What happens next Oliver?” Connor whispered in his ear. 

“And then you finally give me what I want. You’re fucking me and I practically come instantly, so fucking relieved to finally be full, so full of your cock. Oh god Connor. Harder.” Oliver begged so pretty and Connor gave him what he wanted. “You give me a stroke and I’m coming, messy, up my chest. You wipe a hand through it. Suck me off your fingers as you pound into me.” 

At that, Connor took some of the pre-come leaking out Oliver’s cock and brought it to his lips. Watching as Connor sucked him off his fingers, Oliver bucked hard, shoving himself faster into Connor’s fist. “What’s next Ollie?” Connor breathed out. 

Oliver whimpered. “And I’m so blissed out that I just lie there and take it. I just take it. You fucking me hard and fast. And then you come so hard and deep inside me that you all but pass out.”

“Jesus, fuck, Ollie,” Connor muttered and knotted a hand in Oliver’s hair, pulling Oliver’s mouth to his. The kiss was sloppy and messy and open. No finesse. A clash of teeth and too much tongue. And Connor didn’t care. He didn’t give a fuck. He just needed. He needed Oliver fast and now, right here against the counter in his cramped kitchen.

Where the fuck had that been hiding? Weeks of sexting and Oliver barely participated. The few times Connor had tried dirty talk in bed Oliver had quickly kissed him to shut him up. Connor just assumed it wasn’t something Oliver was into. But then he went and gave that little speech at one in the morning over a joint and stale cereal. Completely unexpected and the hottest fucking thing.

Connor let out a whimper as Oliver pulled his hair back enough to break their kiss. Suddenly, the tables were turned. Connor was breathless and needy, rutting shamelessly against Oliver, searching for just the right friction, the right angle, while Oliver was in control. His hands in Connor’s hair and his hips pressing Connor back against the counter; controlling and restraining him in a way that shouldn’t be so hot. Breathlessly, Oliver said, “You going to tell any of that to those nice, straight boys at work over coffee on Monday morning?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Connor demanded and Oliver slowly shook his head, a Cheshire grin spreading across his face. Oliver had played him like a fucking fiddle. “No. I’m not going to tell them about this.” He was definitely never getting Oliver high ever again. High Oliver was a fucking tease. “What the fuck is with you tonight?”

“What can I say? Pot brings it out in me.” Oliver mused and ran a soothing hand through Connor’s hair “Or maybe it just brings out the annoying, horny college-kid. Who knows?”

“It brings out something,” Connor snapped as Oliver brushed soft kisses over his face. Then, in a softer tone, he said, “I would have loved to see you in college.”

“You wouldn’t have looked twice at me in college,” Oliver scoffed and gently ran his hands up Connor’s arms and down his back. “Hell, you wouldn’t have looked twice at me two weeks ago if you hadn’t seen my work ID sticking out of my pocket.” Connor opened his mouth to negate that but Oliver met his eyes and he quickly closed it again. They both know he would be lying. 

Connor didn’t like the sad smile that crossed Oliver’s face as he let the comment slide. He wanted to argue that he should have looked at Oliver twice. Hell, he should have looked at Oliver once and never looked away again. Connor wondered how to explain the cold fear that ran down his spine every time he thought about how he almost missed this. The panic he felt that he had almost missed having this nerdy, hot, frustrating, sexy, challenging, comfortable, contradiction of a man come in and change everything he thought he had known about how he wanted his life to go. But Connor didn’t have the words so he let the moment pass. 

“Anyways, the answer is no,” Connor said, bringing the conversation back to Oliver’s original train of thought. “I’m not going to tell them about this.”

“You could you know,” Oliver said with a shrug. “I don’t mind your coworkers knowing we have really amazing sex.” 

“That we do,” Connor agreed and kissed him again but slower this time and sweeter. He didn’t want to explain to Oliver that the dirty talk hadn’t been what upset him about Asher’s little X-rated spiel this morning. What had been upsetting was, for the first time in a long time (possibly ever), Connor didn’t want to jump in with tales of his own sexual escapades. He didn’t want to regale his coworkers with anecdotes about his sex life because at the moment his sex life consisted entirely of Oliver. And there was something about what ever this was with Oliver that he didn’t want to share. It was something sacred and for the two of them. 

“Are you done teasing me now?” Connor asked, breaking their kiss. 

“For now.”

“Good” Backing Oliver into the counter, Connor ran his hands down to grip Oliver’s ass. Pulling them flush, Connor kissed down his neck and brought his lips up to whisper in Oliver’s ear. “Because I need you to fuck me.” 

Oliver gave him a soft look as he brought his hands up to cradle Connor’s face. He brushed a thumb over Connor’s cheek and looked like he wanted to say something but thought better of it. Connor arched his head back, offering up his neck, and realized that he wanted Oliver to mark him. Suck bruises onto his neck. Bite his collarbone. Connor didn’t necessary want to tell anyone about whatever this thing was between them but he did want everyone to see. He wanted to carry the evidence that he was being loved by this storm of a man with marks that he couldn’t cover with shirts and ties. 

“Mark me.” Connor hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud until Oliver pulled his chin down so their eyes met. Oliver opened his mouth to ask a question but Connor shook his head, cutting the other man off. “I know. It’s fine. Do it. Want them to see.” He wanted people to see and the thought made him frantic. He knuckled Oliver’s hair between his fingers and pulled him down to his neck. “Want them to see. Want everyone to see. Do it.”

The next morning, Connor woke with bruises dotting his neck and collar and didn’t even attempt to cover them up. 

The next time he showed up at Oliver’s door he brought with him Fruit Loops instead of takeout. Oliver had laughed when Connor walked in brandishing the box like some sort of prize. Connor fed Oliver Fruit Loops as Oliver hacked into a client’s Facebook profile and then ate them off Oliver’s body later in bed. A few days later, Oliver brought him Frosted Flakes and sucked him down as Connor attempted to solve the crossword puzzle on the back of the box. The last box had been this Apple Jacks one that Connor had brought over to Oliver’s place the day before Marren became a client of Annalise Keating’s. 

Still sitting on his bed as dawn started to break through the windows, Connor turned the box over in his hand. The ritual was the most ridiculous thing Connor had ever heard of but it was theirs and they hadn’t even finished it. They hadn’t finished anything. It all just stopped right in the middle. Leaving everything broken and undone. 

He carried the box into the kitchen and told himself that he was going to throw it away after he came back from his run. Running always helped clear his mind. 

As he ran, Connor let the city waking around him help to clear his mind. Sunlight was beginning to break through buildings and over streets. It was still too early for a line at the coffee shop but he could smell fresh baked bread as he ran past a bakery. Aside from a few buses and the occasional honk of a cab, the streets were empty and silent. Going for a run had been a great idea instead of tossing and turning all morning. While running he could clear his head and let everything go. Seeing Elsbeth yesterday had helped him confront some things he’d been avoiding but now they were out and everything was looking better. He was going to be better. 

Connor ran by Oliver’s building and didn’t look up to see if there was light coming through the window. He told himself didn’t think about waking up next to Oliver. He told himself didn’t think about someone else waking up next to Oliver. He told himself didn’t think about anything at all. He didn’t feel anything. He had barely even noticed he was running past Oliver’s building.

Connor told himself didn’t feel a goddamn thing. He was finally over that fucking nerd.

Rounding a corner, Connor ran by a bank and noted the time. 

5:54 am on a Monday morning. 

What a lonely time to realize he lied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://ramblesandreblogs.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://ramblesandreblogs.tumblr.com/)


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